


Homecoming

by lesbianscullies



Series: X-Files Childhood Friends AU [1]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Alternate Universe - College/University
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:28:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26965186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbianscullies/pseuds/lesbianscullies
Summary: "I just realized something. I feel at home with you. You are the home that I want to go to. I think I was wrong to stay away all these years. Seeing you again, seeing how you’ve changed, how you’ve stayed the same, maybe this is my homecoming.”Mulder returns to his hometown to visit Scully after six years.
Relationships: Fox Mulder & Dana Scully
Series: X-Files Childhood Friends AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1968421
Comments: 1
Kudos: 18





	Homecoming

**Author's Note:**

> This is my very first fic for anything ever so I hope it isn't godawful lol

Mulder’s obsession with the idea of homecoming started when some distant cousin came to visit for the week when he was in elementary school. They spent a whole day driving around town, pointing out places and reminiscing about things that had happened long before Mulder was ever born. That house is where his cousin’s first crush had lived, that strip mall hadn’t been there, the Pizza Hut down the road used to be an Italian restaurant that he’d gone to for prom night. Samantha had found it terribly boring but Mulder had listened intently. He’d never really thought about how his town might change, how one day he might move away and come back years later, doing his own tour, noting what buildings were new, what shops had closed down, what friends had moved away. While growing up, his town had become stale and boring. Everyone finds it hard to love the place where they grew up. Even still, he found himself a bit homesick after he’d left for Oxford. Well, maybe it was less that he missed his hometown and more that he missed Scully. He hadn’t made it home in the past six years. She had come to visit, working part-time jobs between her own college classes to save up for tickets to come to see him. Mulder always had some excuse to stay in England though. Too expensive, too busy, too much of a hassle. While Scully missed him terribly, she knew the real reason why he didn’t want to come back. Who could blame him, after everything that had happened in that town? Maybe it was easier for him to avoid it.

Scully had been the one to drive him to the airport when it was time for him to leave. She would be starting her senior year and the thought of high school without him stung, though she wouldn’t admit it out loud. He promised he’d come home for Christmas but he hadn’t. He stopped promising to come after that. Three weeks ago, in his most recent letter, he casually mentioned visiting, that he was thinking of maybe moving back. He was feeling directionless. He’d finished his schooling, spent some time goofing off, working a bit. He just wasn’t feeling England anymore. Scully called him the minute she’d finished reading the letter, downplaying the excitement she felt.

...  
Just as it had been six years ago, she had been the only one to pick him up from the airport. Scully was staying with her parents for the winter holiday. She came home every chance she got. He climbed into her car, the same one she'd had when he left, and noticed that the airport looked exactly the same as it had before. She looked pretty much the same as she had when he last saw her a year ago. He noticed that she’d grown her hair out a bit longer. It made her look much younger and even now, at 23, she looked like she was all of 12 years old. As she took the exit towards town, he saw a billboard for a restaurant that hadn't been there six years ago.

At dinner that night, Scully finally asked the question that had been weighing on her. “Mulder, what made you want to come back all of a sudden?” “And here I was thinking that you’d missed me! I’m wounded, Scully!” he retorted. It was just like old times. She idly twirled her straw around in her glass. “I’m serious, Mulder. I was starting to get worried that you were just going to stay in England forever.” “Phoebe and I broke up.” All she could muster was a small, “Oh.” Scully had met her once before but hadn’t liked her. The feeling was mutual on Phoebe's end. Still, though, she tried, for Mulder’s sake, to be supportive. Something about the way she touched him in front of her, the way she talked to him, the way she openly kissed him and acted like Scully wasn’t there, as though Mulder were all hers and no one else was allowed to so much as look at him was annoying, to say the least. “Yeah, well,” he continued, “it’s for the best. She was…” he trailed off. Scully nodded her head. He didn’t need to say anymore, she just knew. “Yeah, she was,” she said, giving him a soft smile. Their waitress set their plates of food down. Their favorite diner was still there. They would frequent it after late-night study sessions or early weekend mornings after sleepovers. The fluorescent lights were the same, as were the sticky vinyl seats and faded menus with pictures of the food printed on them. They didn’t even bother looking at them anymore anyway. “I missed you, you know,” Scully confessed as she picked up a fry. “I missed you too.” They talked about England and about their exes and about Scully’s first year of med school. They fell into easy conversation as if they’d just seen each other yesterday.

…

Scully picked him up from his mother’s house bright and early the next morning. He’d requested that they drive around town together. “I just want to see what’s changed.” They drove around his neighborhood as he pointed out the house where Samantha’s best friend had lived, the house where his childhood nemesis had lived, the houses that gave out the best candy at Halloween when they went trick-or-treating together. They went to their old high school and stomped around on campus, chasing each other around the courtyard and sitting on the tops of the lunch tables on the senior patio until a passing security guard had asked them to leave. “I had expected more to be different,” he confessed as the drove around downtown, looking at the storefronts that had changed. The video store was still there next to the smoke shop, and the abandoned office block still had the same for rent sign outside that had been there since he was 10. “They built an outlet mall just outside of town last year,” Scully shrugged. “We can go if you want. Missy and I went when it opened.” He shook his head. “It all seems nicer, somehow. Like, maybe it wasn’t so bad when I was here, and I just wasn’t appreciating it. Maybe I took everything for granted. I took Samantha for granted and trick-or-treating and the video store and-and even you. I took it all for granted, Scully.”

…

They were lounging in the bed of Mulder’s dad’s old truck, beers in hand, watching the stars. They’d driven up the little mountain trail in the park that they always went to when everything else just seemed like too much. Mulder reached out and grabbed for Scully’s hand and smiled when she let him take it freely. “You know, I expected it to be more profound.” “What?” Scully asked, voice slightly lazy as she turned her head to look at him. “Coming home. As a kid, I always dreamed of this grand homecoming where I come back after years of being away, and everything has changed without me, but I still somehow belong. It’s been six years and it’s all still the same. And-and maybe it’s just my perception of it but I don’t feel at home here. I don’t know if I ever did. Everywhere I go I want to go home. I’ll be sitting at my apartment in my bed and I want to go home. Even last night, sleeping in the house where I grew up, I still wanted to go home. Maybe there’s something wrong with me, Scully. Maybe this is what I was afraid of, that if I ever came back here that I would still want to go home, that there would still be a piece of me missing. But I just realized something. I feel at home with you. You are the home that I want to go to. I think I was wrong to stay away all these years. Seeing you again, seeing how you’ve changed, how you’ve stayed the same, maybe this is my homecoming.” Scully didn’t say anything in response, only squeezed his hand, and rested her head on his shoulder. She felt the same, and even though it was unspoken, he knew it. He heard her breathing even out as she fell asleep against him, and he finally felt at home.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find or DM me on tumblr dot com @x-files1993


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